When People Run In Circles
by lovingcaptainswan
Summary: While chasing a perp, Emma runs into a man who raves about being Captain Hook. But is it really raving? And why can't she stop thinking about it?


**A/n: Yes, I know I shouldn't start anything new, but the muse wants what the muse wants and this is for CS Horror Month on tumblr. This isn't really horror, but it's a creepyish AU, so it works. Lol It will only be 2-3 parts, so don't worry! Also, it's hard T for language and it's unbeta'd, I'll check it over better tomorrow. Enjoy!**

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The first time Emma Swan met Killian Jones (if that _was_ his name) she was running, cutting through an alleyway in hot pursuit of her most recent perp. The asshole had jumped bail for the second time in the past year and he sure wasn't making her job any easier on her this time around. What he _didn't_ know was that she finally had the advantage. He was on foot and though he was thin and wiry and fast a hell, she knew for a fact that she knew the area better than he did.

She hadn't told her boss when she had gotten the job, but she'd lived in this part of the city in one of her foster homes. But she didn't really tell anyone about her time in the system. It'd only been for seven months. One of her longer stints of her younger years, really, but it was enough time for a fourteen year old to learn the streets on long afternoons of trying to avoid a drunken foster dad and a foster mom who had no backbone – both of whom had no business even _applying_ to have a foster kid, much less being accepted. Somehow they got past the system, like most of the families she was_ lucky_ enough to be placed with.

For once in her life, she was happy in some miniscule way that she had been placed with the Farley's, because the shortcut through the alley would not only lead her in the exact direction that he had been running, but it would do it a few seconds faster than the way her perp was going. She could practically feel herself sinking into a hot bubble bath in her hotel room, wine glass in hand, sore and dirty and exhausted from the last three days of constant pursuit as each footfall brought her closer to her target. She could see the light from the streetlamps at the end of the darkened backstreet, she could hear a second pair of faint steps, scuffing and pounding at the street on the other side, quick but unsuspecting.

Then all she was aware of was momentary blackness and the wind being knocked from her lungs as she flew off of her feet and straight onto her ass. The gravel on the asphalt dug into her palms, scraping the skin raw and sending a pulse of pain through her arms and straight to her shoulders as she caught herself from rolling onto her back from the force of the fall.

"What the bloody-" A voice in the darkness gasped, breathing hard himself but somehow maintaining his balance by grabbing at the brick wall beside them, just in the nick of time.

"Shit!" Emma cursed loudly, struggling to catch her breath and stand simultaneously.

"Well, pardon you, darling," a distinctly British voice (most definitely not her Bostonian asshole who had jumped bail), half-annoyed, half-amused yet as smooth as silk greeted her in conjunction with a proffered hand, just a hint of danger dripping from his tongue and flashing in his eyes that shimmered a vibrant blue in the dimmed alleyway.

"Shit, shit, shit, _shit_!"

She continued to curse under her breath as she struggled to get her feet back underneath her. She only glanced at his face for a moment, deciding whether she'd accept it or not, before he took her hand without waiting for her to lift it (with a surprisingly strong grip as he yanked her to her feet in a firm but strangely gentlemanly fashion), stumbling up and brushing herself off in a rushed, absentminded manner as she glanced around, retracting her hand from his as quickly as possible.

She looked back out at the dim, glow of the streetlamp and her heart sank. "No, no, no. Dammit!" She jogged towards the opening out into the streets.

Emma could no longer hear the telltale footfalls against the pavement, but still she ran hard, reaching the end of the lane and looking back and forth down the street for any sign of her man.

Nothing.

She knew this place and it was a damned maze. What little advantage she may have just had was gone with him hiding somewhere in the dark rather than on the run and most likely armed and dangerous.

"What in the bloody hell are you doing out here at this time of night, Lass? And what, pray tell, are you running from?"

"I'm not running from anything. I'm doing my job. What the hell are _you _doing in an alley in the middle of the night? Jesus Christ!" she snapped at the man who had clearly followed, still brushing at her clothes furiously, her fantasy bleeding from images of hot baths and relaxation into another sleepless night of tracking and danger. Damn this job. "You some kind of pervert or something?"

The words flew from her thoughts and out of her mouth before she even realized she was saying them and she had to blame exhaustion and possibly even plead insanity on that one (without a doubt spurred on from nearly 36 hours with no sleep, a couple of snack-pack pastries she called 'meals' lately, and a ridiculous amount of caffeine) because that was most _definitely_ in the top five list of things you do _not_ say to strange, somewhat intimidating men you run into in dark alleys – sexy accent or not.

In fact, those ones were probably the worst ones to say it to.

She turned back to see the man that she had seen before, now in a slightly better light. He had tussled, dark brown hair, possibly black, those blue eyes that cut through the darkness, wearing a black button-up with the long sleeves half rolled up, and faded blue jeans with what looked like purposely rubbed thin holes in the knees. Aside from the fact that he had been skulking around an alley at two in the morning, the smoothed over stump on his left wrist where a hand should have been was the only disturbing thing about him. A shiver ran down her spine and she knew it was wrong to judge him based on the deformity, but in this particular situation, she gave herself a pass on political correctness.

"Oh quite," he chuckled darkly, taking a terrifying step closer, making every hair on Emma's body feel as if they were standing on end. One more move and she was going for her gun. One more move. "Though only when asked to be, love."

"Yeah, well," she straightened and squared her shoulders a bit, anxious to get out of this situation – _alive_ if at all possible – and back to her car that was unfortunately, at least three blocks away.

Noticing her apparent apprehension he took a step back and instead held out a hand. She stiffened, fingers twitching with the urge to reach for the weapon in the back of her jeans.

"Allow me to introduce myself. Killian Jones. Though most have taken to calling me by my more colorful moniker. _Hook_."

"Hook?"

Ok, then. An attractive yet dangerous-feeling, one-handed man in an alleyway is blocking her path and introducing himself as 'Hook'. If this didn't scream teen slasher flick, nothing did.

"What like Captain Hook?" she joked lightly, ignoring his hand for the second time that night and slowly inching away, keeping her eyes on him nonetheless, every sense tingling, ready to turn on her rabbit-like speed in a second if she needed to. _He's just some druggie hanging out in an alley. No big deal, Emma. You've run into worse. Just don't set him off. _

"Oh, so you've heard of me."

She could have sworn that he sounded pleased, as if he didn't get how crazy he sounded.

"Uh… sorta. Looked a little different in the Disney movies," she replied, struggling to appear casual but unable to mask her nervousness now as she walked a few more steps, only yards away from the streetlamp now. _Just keep walking, Emma, just keep walking. _

"Wait!" The amusement had drained from his tone and replaced with a commanding one. "Do you know this land?"

_This land? Don't answer, just keep walking._

"I believe I may have business here with a certain crocodile."

_Crocodile? Fuck. Definitely just keep walking, Emma. _

She began to reach for her weapon while simultaneously glancing back, but it was too late.

"Hey!" His voice pierced the quiet again and she felt herself being pulled back forcefully, pain ringing through her arm and her heart sank as she felt the 9mm slip from her jeans and heard it clatter to the ground. She found herself nearly nose to nose with the man as he dipped his face to her level, interest flashing in his expression rather than malice, but the act alone was enough to let her know that she wasn't staying around to see what he wanted regardless. "I didn't intend that we meet, but now that we have, I believe that you may be of service to me."

"What if I don't want to be?" She kneed him hard, missing his groin when he jerked out of the way, hitting him squarely in the thigh instead.

It was enough to distract him. She wrenched her wrist out of his grasp, cocking her other fist back to hit him in the jaw as hard as she possibly could, when a complete change came over his countenance and he let go of her completely, stumbling backwards until his back hit the brick wall behind him.

"What the fu- what just- why am I-"

Emma wanted to run, but the absolute confusion in his eyes and pure fear in his voice (a voice that had mysteriously taken on a thick Irish accent that wasn't anything like the confident, sensual British tone that he had been using before) as he practically cowered against the building wall made her stop mid-punch.

It was against _every single_ instinct, _every bit_ of street-wise that she'd ever possessed, but she dropped her arm slowly and took the tiniest of steps closer.

"Hey… Are you alright?"

"I- where am I? Who are you? How did I fucking get here?"

"What are you talking about? You were here before I was."

"No, I wasn't. I was at the bar!"

A bar? He didn't seem _drunk_. He seemed more like he was on some sort of drugs, but his pupils weren't dilated as they would have been if he were high, his eyes weren't bloodshot, and he looked too, well, _healthy_ to be your run of the mill addict wandering the streets.

"A bar."

"Yes, yes, my bloody bar back in Storybrooke. I've lived there since I was a child. Where am I now?"

Storybrooke? What the hell was _Storybrooke_? A town? What the hell had just happened with this guy? One minute he was dark and seductive and called himself Captain Hook and the next he was some Irish bartender from a town she'd never heard of?

On a whim she asked him his name. She didn't know what she expected, but she was too freaked out at the moment to question the logic.

He looked back at her, a bit bewildered, still glancing around as if he had absolutely no recollection of who she was or what had just transpired less than two minutes ago. "G-Gavin. My name's Gavin," the anxious, and still Irish-accented voice spoke out quietly. "H-how did I get here? What the hell happened? I was just closing the bar and…"

Emma wanted to run. Warning bells practically screamed in her head to leave, but instead she felt a strange sense of worry for the man in front of her.

"Hey, hey, it's ok. I thought your name was Killian?"

"What? Why the hell would you think that?" he exclaimed, and he sounded _terrified_, Emma couldn't make sense of it.

"So you're not Killian Jones?"

"No! Why do you keep saying that? Who _are_ you?"

"And you're not Captain Hook?"

"Captain… what? You're insane! My name is Gavin! I'm a bartender from Storybrooke, Maine. For god's sakes, I wasn't even drinking tonight-"

For the millionth time in the past year, Emma didn't know what to make of her life. Her life had been pretty screwed up, but this took the cake for recent shitty situations. Someone who claimed to be Captain Hook _and_ a guy from Storybrooke. Jeez. Whoever named _that one_ must have had a laugh... Storybrooke... S_torybook_, Captain Hook… fuck this guy was batshit crazy. _Great job taking a shortcut, Emma. Great job._

"I'm sorry, you just said – It's ok. Just listen, I'm gonna call someone for you, ok?" She reached for her cellphone, again questioning her own sanity, her fingers dialing out 9-1-1 as she kept her eyes trained on the man who was still acting like a scared rabbit. "It's gonna be ok, Gavin."

Twenty minutes later an ambulance pulled up beside them and she hadn't gotten much more out of the man, though his accent had slipped between British and Irish twice, and once he even called her 'love' before slipping back into the scared bartender persona who still seemed to have no idea what was happening except in a strange moment where he asked her if he was a pirate.

To say she was freaked out was the understatement of the damned year.

The paramedics talked with him for a few minutes, taking his vitals and asking him questions before one of them came over to her to reiterate her side of the story for the second time. Finally, they began packing up to leave and she crossed her arms over her chest, beginning to shiver a bit from the cold as they loaded him into the ambulance.

"You'll take care of him right? I mean, the guy seems harmless now, but he clearly needs some help," she added quickly, unsure of why she was defending some crazed, addict who she'd been thoroughly freaked out by, but she couldn't help it. There was just something about him...

"Of course, ma'am. He's conceded to coming in with us, so we'll take him to the hospital and run some tests, check for head injuries, anything that could cause these reactions and then if doctors deem necessary and he agrees, mental health will examine him."

Emma nodded, biting her lip. "Thanks."

She began to walk back in the direction of where she had parked her car as she heard the ambulance doors close and it almost felt wrong not to go with him, but why the hell would she?

Tonight had been fucking insane. That's all she knew for sure. That and she wasn't going to be sleeping anytime soon.

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_**Be honest... is it terrible? lol Should I continue it? Review?**_


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